Open Prompt Response, October 30

1983. From a novel or play of literary merit, select an important character who is a villain. Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the nature of the character's villainy and show how it enhances meaning in the work. Do not merely summarize the plot.

            What is the root of evil?  Such a simple question has stumped us all for quite some time.  The reason behind its ability to confuse us is its generality, evil is different in everyone.  The nature of Mr. Hyde’s villainy is pure humanity, and it enforces the meaning of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by starting to illustrate Stevenson’s idea of humanity and evil.

            In Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson really investigates humanity, evil and how they intertwine.  The premise of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is that Dr. Jekyll, a scientist, makes a drink that turns him into another part of himself.  This other part of himself is evil and goes by the name Mr. Hyde.  Mr. Hyde looks different than Dr. Jekyll, because he is basically a different person.  He is described as very ugly, as though he has an obvious deformity, but it’s all internal.  The evidence we have or calling him evil is that he murdered people and tried to take Dr. Jekyll over.  As Dr. Jekyll makes sure we understand, he isn’t pure good while Mr. Hyde is pure evil, it’s about a 90 to 10% ratio, which is probably why Mr. Hyde looks human at all.

            Mr. Hyde is not your typical villain; he doesn’t have some sob story about his childhood that made him the way he is, unlike most super villains. The reason that he can’t is because Mr. Hyde suddenly came into being, he didn’t have a childhood to attach a sob story to.  So, the reason that Mr. Hyde can be so horrible is, quite simply, that he’s human.  More people than there should be in the world are murderers, and those people have the same ratio as you and I of good and evil (assuming that Jekyll is right about his good vs. evil ratio), they just succumb to the 10% of badness. Now multiply that human dispassion by 9 and just try to imagine the result.  Imagining that someone could be like that all of the time is frightening, but Stevenson imagines it anyway.  He uses it to show us how horrible humans could be.  He uses it to show us that we shouldn’t be evil.

            Jekyll in the end starts getting taken over by Hyde even without the draught, Hyde just inherits his body and wreaks havoc on London.  Jekyll fights Hyde, but to no avail he can’t overpower the evil inside him.  And that’s the point that Stevenson uses to get his meaning across, that if we allow evil to thrive, even if only for a very short period of time it will overtake us.  The evil will continue to thrive unbidden and cause us the people we love harm.  Why?  Because we are merely human, and humans aren’t strong enough to stop what we start.  So the nature of Mr. Hyde’s evil, that being his humanity, is how Stevenson gives us the meaning of the novel.

Response to Course Material, October 23

        Well, the past few weeks haven't been super conducive to learning. I mean, I've learned a lot about what's happening in Albee's play, and his hidden meanings, but I haven't really learned anything outside of the play.

        Within the play I'm learning that Grandma and the Young Man are representing different parts of the American Dream. He uses Mommy to show what people are doing to change the dream, and Mommy and Daddy's relationship to show his anti-feminist views.

        I suppose what I did learn outside of the play was by rewriting the in class essay.  Re-doing the essay on the poems by Bridges and Stevenson helped me to understand more how I was supposed to be writing those essays.  I'm still working on getting a method down, so the next essay should help cement that more. 

        I hope that next time I'll think of more I've learned, to write about.  This is a pitiful entry, sorry everyone.

Close Reading, October 23

        In the article, "The Ripper's Secrets" (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-ripper-20111011,0,2063928.story) we see different opinions about Scotland Yard's recent refusal to release secrets of Jack the Ripper.  We see deeper into the author's opinion due to their use of Details, Language, and Syntax. 

        The author of this editorial uses a lot of details such as, "Scotland Yard recently turned down a request to release the thick Victorian ledgers that contain the police reports, tips, clues and maybe a theory or two about Jack the Ripper."  In this sentence we see the beginning evidence that the author believes that Scotland Yard should release the case file to the public.  We see this in how he describes the ledgers, and what the ledgers contain.  If he didn't think that Scotland Yard should share the information he would have belittled the ledgers, saying that there isn't anything of importance in there anyway, but instead he constantly reminds us of the sheer volume of information hidden away.

        The author uses his language to produce a put-off child-like tone.  For instance, he ended a sentence with, "or could he — gasp! — have been a royal?" That's not how you write a formal essay, with interjections like 'gasp', that's how teenagers speak. He also wrote, "That doesn't sit well with Ripperologists. Or with some real experts on state secrets." It sounds like when a kid has a dentist for his mother and she told him that, contrary to what he heard from his best friend Roger, sugar is actually bad for his teeth.  The above sentence is when the child is stomping off saying "Fine, I'll go ask a real dentist."  All in all the author just sounds insolent and like he's throwing a temper tantrum about the whole thing.

        The syntax enforces the angry, childish tone of the author.  He uses short sentences that run into each other like they should have been separated by commas, but were instead forced apart by the child having to calm down so as to think comprehensively. Also, by interjecting the "gasp!" in the earlier sentence the author also interjects a sarcastic tone.  Less child like, but still immature.  He reinforces the sarcastically immature tone with the sentence, "And he says he's oh, so close to proving it." The author's syntax is simple, only deviating to seem more sarcastic or childish.

        The author wishes that Scotland Yard had revealed what they knew about the Jack the Ripper case, and is using this editorial as his temper tantrum.  This is the way he shows them what he wants, but like any child, this tantrum won't get him what he wants.

Open Prompt Response, October 16

2009. A symbol is an object, action, or event that represents something or that creates a range of associations beyond itself. In literary works a symbol can express an idea, clarify meaning, or enlarge literal meaning. Select a novel or play and, focusing on one symbol, write an essay analyzing how that symbol functions in the work and what it reveals about the characters or themes of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

         There are a lot of clumsy people in this world, so a character dropping something in a story shouldn’t mean anything, it’s just something that happens in life. But when analyzing a literary work you have to realize that everything means something.  In Nella Larson’s Passing we see how simply dropping a teacup is a symbol, and thereby how it affects the work and discusses characters or themes.

         One of the main characters in Passing, Irene, is hosting a small party when she notices her world is crumbling in around her.  Her best friend, Clare, is talking to Irene’s husband Brian, when it clicks in her mind that they must be having an affair. We as the reader don’t know what it is that makes her think that, and we don’t know whether or not she’s right, but as she realizes it, she drops the teacup she’s holding.  The teacup breaks instantly as it hits the floor, and we instantly realize it must be a symbol.  The question is, what does it mean?

         The broken teacup has a few different meanings, the first one reveals things about Irene’s mental stability.  She had always trusted Brian and Clare but all of a sudden she thinks they’re having an affair.  For the rest of the novel, Irene is changing. She is more jealous and suspicious, more malicious, and her thoughts become rather scrambled. For example, at the end of the novel Irene helps expose Clare’s race to her husband (he thought she was white when she was really a fair skinned black), which she knew was the most dangerous thing that could happen to Clare.  And at the very end Clare falls, or jumps or was pushed, out of a window.  We don’t know which it is, because Irene is our narrator and her thoughts have become amazingly jumbled.

         The teacup reveals things about Carle as well as Irene.  The teacup is porcelain, and when we think of porcelain we typically get an image of white porcelain.  So the teacup also connects us to Clare because she is the only white character besides her husband.  When the teacup falls from Irene’s hand and breaks we see foreshadowing of the end.  The teacup is Clare, falling out of a window, breaking or dying. 

         When we look back at this we see that Larson didn’t leave an ambiguous ending as most people believe.  She spells out the answer to everyone’s question.  How did Clare fall?  Did Irene push her out of jealousy and spite? Did she jump, trying to finally free herself from her self-constructed prison? Or did she fall, just slip, was it all a horrible accident?  Larson tells the answer with the teacup.  It is dropped by Irene, which shows us that Clare was pushed by Irene. 

         These things show us just how important symbols are to stories. They give us the answers we are desperately seeking, and are used to show us things about characters in the novel.  So really, it’s never just a teacup.

Close Reading, October 7

             The first thing you'll notice about this article is that it isn't ordinary.  And you'd be right, it isn't something you'll see a newspaper, but you might see it National Geographic, or simply on a newspaper's website.  This is because the Editorial Notebook: "Impressions of Haiti" by Lawrence Downes (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/04/09/opinion/04122010-HAITI_index-1.html), is a photo journal.  However, photographs can be close read, and there are short captions that explain the images that can be analyzed using DIDLS.  The most prominent parts of DIDLS you will find in this photo journal are imagery, details, and syntax.

             One amazing thing about this photo journal is how the caption of one of the pictures can bring about an image in your mind, sometimes the image is different than the one in front of you.  If you look at slide four you'll see what I mean.  In this slide the caption discusses the scene in the photo, the "mountain range of wreckage... with foothills of cracked concrete and bricks," and Downes is literal, that's what you see, the rise and fall of peaks and valleys of the rumble.  He also uses imagery that gives a distinctly different image, "The streets were veins carrying blood and oxygen through a corpse."  When cities are described they are often described as pulsing or beating like a heart, which makes us think of life and upbeat happiness.  When Downes writes the above sentence we start off with that image, of a lively city, until we realize that it ended differently than we expected; it ended with the word corpse.  That helps show us Downes' point in this slide, which is the immense and sudden change of life to death.

            In slide seven we see Downes' prominent use of detail.  He uses it in the picture as well as in the caption.  This time however, the slide and caption are basically identical.  The detail in the picture is the random groundskeeper in the middle of it.  Without him we have a completely different picture.  Without him we see another ruined building, but with him we see how selfish and stupid the government is.  With him the picture's meaning is that when a government would rather spend money keeping the grounds of the presidential palace clean instead of helping the refugees, recovery is going to take longer than it should.  Thousands of people needed a place to go and the details in the caption, "Still, groundskeepers kept its lawns tidy, the grass clipped and raked, and free of trash and refugees." show us where said refugee's are on the government's list of priorities.

            Authors often use syntax to help show meaning.  In slide thirteen Downes helps prove this point.  The sentences are chopped up with commas and semi-colons giving a stuttering and hesitant feel to what Downes is saying.  However, the small pieces of each sentence are blunt and to the point which shows us how the Haitians approached the task.  It is stuttering for Downes is hesitant, not wanting to watch the men go about unearthing the dead in such a matter-of-fact way, whereas the men jump right in knowing it has to be done, for no one can stand the stench.

            Downes uses imagery, details, and syntax in his pictures and words to help truly reveal the meaning of each slide, and the article as a whole.  The Haitian government needs to get its priorities straight if they want to get people back in homes, and the people need help, they can't deal with all of this death alone.

Response to Course Material, October 6

            Since the last Response to Course Material, we've covered some interesting new things, and some throw-myself-off-of-a-cliff-super-boring old things. Let's start with the latter.

            Well, I guess only one thing really falls into this category, and that's plagiarism. Yes it is definitely a good thing to review, but that doesn't make it less boring. However, we went deeper into this idea of plagiarism and I did actually learn a more extended definition of plagiarism (i.e. Don't go stealing style).

                Now to the former, we've covered a lot more on syntax, and I feel that I really understand how it contributes to the meaning now, which is something I truly didn't understand before. We've learned about different types of comedy, such as high comedy versus low comedy, parody versus satire, and burlesque. We've also learned about what elements are necessary to create comedy. Some of these elements are that it must cater to the readers' intellect rather than their emotions, it must be mechanical, and yet it must be human.

            We've also started learning about theater of the absurd, and read Albee's The American Dream to help us comprehend the idea of this absurdity.  After having read The American Dream, I do feel as though I have a better grasp on how theater of the absurd is used as a literary device.

            All in all, it has been another very productive week or two in AP English.

Open Prompt Response, October 2

2002. Morally ambiguous characters -- characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good -- are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

            Love is the center of so many human conflicts, but other animals fight for the love of a female, so maybe it isn’t just humans who desire love enough to kill for it.  We see this in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s monster is very morally ambiguous because he does good and bad things, this is significant to the work as a whole because it helps show us a meaning in the novel.

            Frankenstein’s monster is sensitive and caring, all he wants is love and acceptance. If he was human we would call him a good guy, not morally ambiguous, but straight up good. However, he isn’t human, he is a “monster” and because of that he is never accepted by society. After being rejected time after time by society the monster gives up on trying to get what he wants that way. Instead he decides to fight to get love, to kill people close to Dr. Frankenstein to try to get back at him. After that point he becomes viewed as the bad guy, he really becomes a monster in the readers’ mind.

            Frankenstein’s monster manages to stay morally ambiguous because when he starts killing people he gains more pity from the reader. He had asked Dr. Frankenstein to make him a wife, and when he was denied his one dream he resorted to the only other thing he knew. Violence. So because it isn’t his fault he is the way he is, the reader doesn’t see him as evil, but they also can’t overlook the fact that he is killing people, and as such the monster is continually viewed as morally ambiguous.

            This is very significant to the work because it makes the reader ask questions. What is ok in real life? Do circumstances justify crimes? Is it ok to kill for love? Shelley uses the monster to show the world how ambiguous crimes can be. Frankenstein’s monster is one of the main characters in the novel, and by making a main character morally ambiguous we see that Shelley is discussing a larger issue. To use a smaller character to question something we know that the author is only questioning on  smaller level. Using this knowledge we see that Shelley is questioning not only crimes, but the world as a whole. She questions value systems of her culture, maybe she’s discussing corruption in the monarchy.

            All in all Frankenstein teaches us that we should question morals, see the gray areas, and decide for ourselves the truth of the matter.